


Would that the Battle at River Dane Could Be Our Last

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Ambiguity, Character Study, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28976613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: “I know the difference between someone who has knowingly led men to die – someone who can make the hard decisions – and someone who cannot.”A few small decisions Loghain Mac Tir has made, for better or for worse.
Relationships: Alistair & Loghain Mac Tir, Loghain Mac Tir & Female Mahariel, Loghain Mac Tir & Morrigan, Loghain Mac Tir & Uldred & Wynne, Zevran Arainai & Loghain Mac Tir & Sten
Comments: 15
Kudos: 6
Collections: Loghanuary





	1. Uldred & Wynne

It was not the first time that Teryn Loghain had met Wynne, on that cold and damp piece of land where they had set camp at Ostagar. Wynne had many time over led troops of Creation and Primal magic specialists to war. She was a veteran of nearly as many battles as he was, although it was unlikely she’d ever see the kind of recognition for it he had.

In Loghain’s worse moments, he thought that was entirely justified.

If there was one thing Wynne was good at, it was judging. Endless judging. Pretentious, high handed moralising. With one very peculiar set of life circumstances to back it up.

So Loghain had heard about Uldred long before he’d ever had the opportunity to meet the man. Wynne had expressed a strong dislike for him between the words of her conversations with Irving and Greagoir.

Uldred was callous with the apprentice mages at the tower. He was ruthless, if effective, in hunting down blood mages. He was stubborn and impossible to have a productive discussion with (Wynne seemed to have no self-awareness that the same could be said for her). Sometimes, when Wynne was frustrated enough to drop the matronly teacher act, she would tell the truth.

“There’s just something that’s not right about that man,” she would steam, red at the ears.

The man that Loghain met at Ostagar was not the person she described. He was an odd man, to be sure, but Uldred was congenial as far as Loghain could tell. And he had provided a most interesting set of feedback at the War Table. It was fortunate or unfortunate that Loghain ended up walking with both of him and Wynne, as they made their final preparations and moved to take their spots in the battle to come.

“It was a waste of resources to hold The Tower of Ishal symbolically when we, mages, could have sent up the signal to march just as well,” Uldred said firmly. “The Reverend Mother’s distrust of us may cost us the battle.”

“Andraste’s sake,” Wynne scolded, as she adjusted her cowl, “do not predict our failure before the battle has even started.”

Loghain grunted and made no commitment to Wynne’s comment either way. But he did turn to Uldred, and the firelight reflecting off his scalp. “Your plan was a sound one, and I would have carried it out if it would not have risked our standing with the Chantry and its templars.”

“They overstep their boundaries,” Uldred said sharply. “The Chantry should not have jurisdiction over Circle mages – they prevent us from doing good.”

“Not this old argument,” Wynne sighed. “Mages are feared for good reason, and trust must be earned. And I must say, as your colleague, you have done little to assuage the distrust that exists against us.”

Uldred scoffed, and Loghain found himself unduly taking sides. Given succour from The Circle, Wilhelm had done more good towards ousting Orlesian rule than all the mages of the high tower combined. And the Circle had remained neutral in Ferelden’s rebellion for one very telling reason.

“The Chantry is merely another arm of Orlais,” Loghain affirmed, looking directly to Uldred. “And though I fear it would be too much to accomplish in my short life, I would bat that arm back from Ferelden if I could.”

Uldred had gone very quiet, but his eyes gleamed greedily, like a starving man.

Wynne seemed to have no such troubles in the way she huffed and glared.

“I must begin my march,” Loghain said, nodding perfunctorily to both of them. But he turned to Uldred for a few parting words. “But if you have any proposals regarding the matters we’ve discussed, you may feel free to send a missive about them after the battle is over. Assuming we both live.”

In the short span of that conversation, there had been no particular way to know that Uldred would go on to consort with demons and sabotage the strategical utility of Kinloch Hold in the process. He told Wynne as much.

But, Maker, if Wynne didn’t judge anyhow. About that. About Cailin. About every word he’d ever said and every decision he had ever made, the circumstances behind why he’d made them be damned. He had already known that about Wynne. Once she decided she disliked you, it was over.

He indulged her as long as he was able. But one day he found himself particularly annoyed.

“No one cares about the judgements of an interfering old biddy,” he snapped, and watched her pupils widen with almost imperceptible hurt.

He did not know if this was kindness, but he elected not to say the second half: _No one cares about the judgements of a mage either._


	2. Morrigan

The conversation was not all together captivating.

She possessed a sharp wit, certainly. And in the end she’d managed to take him down with a precisely aimed quip. He shrugged that off. Once he had been as proud as her, and would have taken personal humiliations close to heart. But that was a long time ago. What did it matter if she made him look the fool in the presence of one Warden and their Mabari?

But there was one part of the conversation that stayed with him. “You are younger than I imagined.” She bit her lip, just so. And raked her eyes over the breadth of his shoulders, then from the top of his head to his toes. She said every word with a sigh and a lilt.

He felt her eyes on him often, after that. Sharp yellow pinpricks seeking him out like a vulture. She always set up camp away from the others, and he wondered at first if he imagined the way her eyes darted through the space between them to find him. He took on a large share of the grunt work around camp, to make a point of his humility, or perhaps just to have time alone, away from the others. When he scoured dirty pots in the river, he’d sometimes have the urge to look back. And when he did, there she’d be.

She was beautiful. She walked around Ostagar in what could only barely be considered clothing, warmed only by her magic. She had sharp eyes and a sharp nose, slender, with skin just dark enough to contrast against the white snow. Chasind features that people would have hurried to call unattractive, if only they couldn’t see her. But she made sure you saw, and made sure you knew you were wrong.

Such a woman taking an interest in him might have made him feel young and powerful. It would have done so for many men. Maric and Cailin would have been like that certainly. Loghain could easily imagine the way they’d assert themselves with her, and in doing so unwittingly capitulate to her will and warmth and beauty and the illusion that you could ever be as relevant as you once were.

But Loghain was not them. And there was nothing like a girl child romping about, pretending he was her peer, to make him feel very, very old.


	3. Sten & Zevran

The nightmares were not getting better, even with the Archdemon slain. He found the two of them in the middle of the night, while he was pacing the halls for his insomnia.

The Crow had a pack wider than he was strapped to his back, with a banner wrapped around it that Loghain recognised as those that streamed over the Denerim palace walls. The Qunari was carrying nothing but his armour and sword and himself.

They were talking in hushed voices that snuffed out as Loghain approached.

“Where are you two off to?” he asked warily.

The Crow put on an easy smile and cocked his head. “Oh, my dear Loghain,” he mocked, “the festivities here are nearly over, and we would not want to overstay our welcome.”

Loghain thought for a moment that this was as direct an answer as he would get, when the Qunari spoke up. “We are going to report to the Kathaban and arrange passage to Par Vollen.”

The Crow seemed surprised, in an amused sort of way. “And here I thought you intended to keep it a secret.”

“So secret we told the bard,” the Qunari deadpanned.

“Ah, point taken, my Qunari friend,” the Crow agreed. “Shall we depart then?”

“It is dangerous to walk the Denerim streets at night,” Loghain pointed out.

“And we are dangerous people,” the Qunari said. But he seemed to consider, and relent. “You may accompany us partway if you choose, General.”

A brisk nighttime walk did not sound entirely unamendable, so Loghain agreed. They walked on dark dirt roads, with the moon overhead, in the vague direction of the docks. The Crow filled the air with an aimless anecdote about boots, or knocking boots, or something of the kind. The Qunari was silent entirely.

At least until there was a lull in the Crow’s stories, and Loghain found the opportunity to voice some of his questions.

“You say you are reporting to this… _Kathaban_?”

The Crow looked to the Qunari for guidance.

“They are tasked with the naval forces of the Antaam,” the Qunari explained. “I believe your word for it is ‘Admiral’.”

Loghain scoffed. “I would think I’d have noticed a foreign naval force in the middle of Denerim.”

The Qunari seemed unconcerned. “Then it would not be the first time you’d thought wrong.”

Loghain shook this off. He turned to the Crow. “And you? I thought you were trying to avoid the rest of your Crows. And here you are sailing closer to them?”

“The Crows are everywhere, my friend,” the Crow shrugged. “I am not sure Par Vollen is reasonably closer to them than I have been to them in my time here. But regardless, as with this Kathaban, we see that the best hiding place is often right under someone’s nose.”

“The darkest spot is under the brightest lighthouse,” the Qunari offered. And Loghain had to resist the urge to groan. By far the Qunari’s worst trait was the way he spouted proverbs as if they were wisdom.

“Why would you even _want_ to go to the Qunari lands?” Loghain asked the Crow.

The Crow shrugged, and his entire pack jostled. “I have nowhere else to go. And I am curious about this land where _some of_ the elves are put in charge of _some of_ the humans.”

The Qunari scoffed and shook his head.

Loghain did not feel satisfied. “Truth be told, I had thought you would stay in Ferelden following the end of the Blight.”

He did not think that this Antivan foreigner would necessarily understand the appeal of his homeland, however undeniable. But he thought that he would know better than to consider joining the Qun. The Qunari, Sten, had made it abundantly clear that his people had no intention of honouring the Llomerryn Accords and that one day, whether measured in months or years or decades or centuries, the Qunari Conquests would continue. And when that time came, the lines of their battlefield would be drawn and need defending. To be part of the Qun was to be the enemy of all of Thedas.

“Perhaps under different circumstances I might have stayed.” Zevran gave a wry and insincere smile. “But it seems clear to me that Ferelden is not a country where it is very safe to be an elf. Did you not see to that yourself, my friend?”

Loghain resisted the urge to sigh and rub his temples. _This again._

But this was not the same as the moral outrage of the Landsmeet – the blind conviction that Ferelden must be better than Tevinter. Each life lost from Ferelden was a loss for the country herself. And you paid the price of war in lives lost and hoped in the end you saved more people than you sold out. And so Loghain always knew what it would cost when he shipped out those fifty or so elves from the Alienage. And this was part of that cost, too – that Ferelden would loose the loyalties and faith of those who might otherwise have stood by her.

_Had he not seen to that himself?_

“I suppose I did,” he admitted.

They walked silently a few more steps, and Loghain could see the ocean between the buildings now, and the moonlight reflecting off the water.

The Qunari cleared his throat. “We will part ways here,” he said. “I will not lead you to the Kathaban. Not unless you plan to come with us to Par Vollen as well.”

Loghain huffed a laugh. “No, I do not think so.”

“Good,” the Qunari said. And Loghain was surprised to find something like reverence in his tone. “You have your own place with the Wardens. You could do worse.”

“You to yours and I to mine?”

“Indeed.”

Loghain halted on the street. And maybe once he would have tried to stop the two of them, these enemies of Ferelden, each carrying far too much information that might be used against her. Once he might have attempted to cut them both down right here in the street, that they outnumbered him be damned.

But he decided not to do that. And, anyhow, the Qunari was right. He was no longer a Teryn, or a Knight of the Crown, to be defending Ferelden. He was a Grey Warden.

“Safe travels,” he offered instead. And he watched the Qunari nod, the Crow wave, and then both continue along their path and disappear out of sight.


	4. Mahariel

“Why did you spare me?” Loghain asked her.

It was a long walk back to Ostagar, and they had cut through the Brecilian Forest rather than take the road. Loghain had been convinced it would prolong the trip by days, if not months. But he was not the one with the authority between them. And no doubt arguing with a Dalish elf about how well they could traverse the forests they mucked around in could take up days in of itself.

Three days later, and to Loghain’s best estimation they were making good time. Mahariel seemed to know the area well, all the criss-crossing streams, how to avoid the worst beasts, which plants would cause rash. She blazed the trail ahead of them, and it occurred to Loghain that they were not far from Gwaren. The Teyrnir he technically presided over which, even before abandoned to the Blight, he had long since abandoned for the Denerim Royal Court.

Mahariel knew the lands of his own Teyrnir better than he did.

“I am a traitor to Ferelden,” he reminded her. “I tried to have you killed.” _And I am useless to you_ , he thought, _in the middle of this wilderness._

Mahariel drew back the machete in her hand and fixed him with a look so stern it could match his own. The lines tattooed on her face were blurred under her skin, and red brown like blood. He wondered which of the Elvhen gods it was a tribute too. He knew a couple of names – Andruil, Mythral – but the significance these gods bore escaped him.

“A traitor to Ferelden,” she repeated. “And what does that mean? What do I care about your Human kingdoms and settlements? Your lines of succession?” She scoffed, and turned forward. “I know the difference between someone who has knowingly led men to die – someone who can make the hard decisions – and someone who cannot. I know which one I need at my side to end the Blight.”

He had taken it to mean she had seen something she valued of herself in him, and they were two of a kind. He didn’t realise until she came to him in tears on the eve of battle, frantically whispering about rituals and blood and death, that she wanted him to make the decision to live for her.


	5. Alistair

The Wardens were simply passing through, which meant they were not to get involved in the riots the Qunari had incited around the city.

Stroud had informed him of this with regret in his heart, Andraste’s name on his lips, and that stupid Orlesian accent on his tongue. Which only furthered Loghain’s opinion that the Qunari could have the blasted thing for all he cared. It was an ugly city, and for all its streets were paved where Denerim had had dirt roads, it managed to be dirtier for it. The manure and filth simply had no place to sink into the ground.

But there was pity yet in Loghain’s heart, and he could not let people suffocate and die in a burning tavern when he could do something yet to stop it. He pulled an elvhen woman in a long skirt free to the exit, when he was assaulted from the other side.

The drunk pounded a dull fist against his armour. “ _You!_ ” he slurred. “You should have been hanged!”

“The day is still young,” Loghain snarled, thrusting the man away from him. “It might yet come to pass.”

“Murderer! Traitor!” the drunk accused, and that was when Loghain got a good look at the man and noticed the resemblance to Cailan. To Maric.

“If you would wait, I will give you my full attention once the tavern is evacuated.”

“Deserter! Coward!” Alistair spat. “Fight me now.”

“I will evacuate the rest of the people in this tavern first,” Loghain said firmly. “And you are more than welcome to drive a knife through my back while I attempt to, if that does not suit you.”

Alistair looked wan and sick, and Loghain did not think it was only from breathing in too much smoke. “I can’t,” Alistair whimpered. “The guard confiscated my weapons after I…”

“Then you will just have to wait,” Loghain cut him off as he went to search the other rooms.

Alistair himself ended up being one of the people Loghain hauled out from inside the Hanged Man, and the only one not to quickly disperse. He leaned over Loghain’s shoulder and punched Loghain in the side every so often.

“Why are you here?” he slurred pathetically. “After all this time. And when I haven’t got a sword.”

“I’m here with the Grey Wardens,” Loghain huffed, as they climbed the stairs further up the city. “They’re not far ahead now. You can sense where they are as well as I can. Same way I can sense the taint in you. You’re a Warden too.”

“Stupid Grey Wardens,” Alistair spat, as he stumbled over the steps. “What are the Wardens good for? Just a stupid club, that’s what it is. Everyone hanging around and talking about their taint.”

“We stopped a Blight, boy,” Loghain sneered, as he dragged Alistiar higher.

Alistair did not take this to mean him as well, it seemed. As if he had nothing to do with gathering the army that filled Denerim that day. “It should have been me,” he whimpered. “I failed you, Duncan. I’m so sorry.” He turned on Loghain, more mournful than accusatory. “They never should have let you take the Joining. The Joining… It brings down the whole Order.”

Loghain grabbed the nape of Alistair’s neck and pinched the skin in his gauntlet, so Alistair squeaked. “You think I brought the Order down?!” he demanded. “I’ve seen them take in rapists and kinslayers. It’s a place for apostates and criminals. It’s for people like _me_ ,” he sneered, “and people like you – people who are _out of options,_ ” he enunciated clearly.

“It was more than that for me,” Alistair said forlorn. “Duncan – he saved me. And I- I can’t go back to them. And I can’t kill you. The guard confiscated my weapons.”

The drunk was starting to repeat himself, and Loghain was given the distinct impression he was wasting his time.

But he wasn’t, was he? This person, against all odds, was a brother – bound to the same Calling as him.

“The tavern burned down,” Alistair whined. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You’re going to pick yourself up,” Loghain told him with finality. “And you’re going to keep moving.”


End file.
